Using my little tacky calendar as a memory jogger helped me to reveal what was going on in my life in February of 1996. As the January purgatory of ‘96 came to an end, I was approaching completion of the Winter 1996 edition of Dante’s Info #15. In fact for the next year I signified the exact day that I first completed the first copy - that is, had it completely printed, folded, and stapled - as D.I. Day in my calendar and I highlighted that day with a yellow highlighter. This day first came on February 5, 1996.
Dante’s Info #15 was a good issue, despite my ever-growing impatience with the poor quality of photo reproductions within the newsletter. This issue marked a return to printing every cover individually to ensure that at least that would look good. The theme of this edition was simply Oliver Hardy (a Stan Laurel issue would come later) since his birthday fell on January 18, 1892. I loved the cover photo of Ollie from Way Out West and the quote that I had extracted from Tit For Tat.
The issue also included a slew of rare photos - most of which were pictures of Ollie and came from Bob Satterfield’s collection - and a brief article on Ollie’s scrapbook, which my friend Randy Skretvedt had shown me back in 1992. He even gave me one of the photos out of it, which I also displayed. I also finally published my article and findings from the visit with Olive Brasno that Lisa and I made the prior Summer (more details here). In addition there was a filmography of the Brasnos contributed by my friend Richard Finegan, an article about L&H co-star Kay Deslys contributed by Bill Cappello, some of my notes on co-star Isabelle Keith, a brief article about a new film discovery, an piece about an unknown L&H joint appearance in a film called Now I’ll Tell One, and finally a mini-tribute to Robert Benchley - an unrelated comedy documentary star from the 30’s and 40’s. The latter two can be seen below.
Wrapped into all of this was the meeting schedule, an editorial, and recent events column (appropriately titled Recent Events). Tying everything together was the film program for the first three months of the year which featured films significant to the career of Oliver Hardy, the Brasnos’ two appearances with Our Gang, shorts from Robert Benchley, the screening premiere of Now I’ll Tell One, and our continuing screening of the Superman chapter serials. Our February 25 meeting at the home of Charles Sexton featured one of Ollie’s favorite of his screen appearances: Jitterbugs.
If I do say so myself, I was getting the hang of making the newsletter and meetings something to get excited for. Although the membership and attendance didn’t always reflect it, there were a group of people who appreciated my efforts to the tent and newsletter. I even had a batch of out-of-town subscribers and that always made me feel good.
According to my notated calendar, the month also saw a few other significant events, the least of which was the brief return to civility between Lisa and Christi, who both joined me in going out to the Asylum dance club on Friday, February 5. Also noted were my ‘obsessions’ going into the month: the TV sitcom It’s Your Move, Mad Magazine, the show Picket Fences (which I was currently sharing with Lisa for the first time), Cheap Trick, and a ‘commitment’ to not eating out (which might better be described as a goal - however feeble - rather than an obsession).
Resolution and self-control were hardly my strong points in those days. My New Year’s resolution to quit smoking lasted until January 6, when I smoked not one, but two cigarettes. Apparently I was still trying in February, but made the notation that I did smoke at the Asylum. The no-out-to-eat goal of February failed by the 9th when we went out to eat with Mom and Denise to Chi-Chi’s to celebrate Mom’s 46th birthday.
And we kept eating out, ordering pizza on the 11th (ha ha). For Valentine’s Day, Lisa took me out to Frisch’s on the holiday itself and I returned the favor by taking her to TGI Friday’s on the 16th. I bought her a ring and she got me the CD to Miss Saigon for Valentine’s Day gifts. I also enjoyed assisting Ashleigh with her Valentine’s Day cards when she would make her weekly visit and stay over. These were for her kindergarten class and her after-school day care at Children’s World in Beavercreek.
As for work, I had my first significant change in environment since I had been placed in the front office at the Beavercreek Kroger store in 1994. My front end manager Donna Lewchencko was promoted to the new opening Miamisburg store and the old store’s front end manager Mary Baldauf came to Beavercreek. Donna’s last day was on the 9th, and Mary came on the 10th. As much as I liked Donna, Mary and I would go on to become friends as well and I would later became friends with her son Damien.
On Monday, February 19th, Lisa and I received notice of another arbitrary rent increase at our crummy Woodman Park apartment. Fed up with these kind of hikes, we immediately set about shopping for new apartments. Lisa found a location near Wright State called the Peppertree Apartments, which were just built and in the process of filling up with their first tenants. Even though it was our exam week at Wright State, we made the arrangements to become the first occupants of 1455 Bell Pepper Court, Apartment 203 - putting our down payment and shopping for some furniture on the 22nd, starting the necessary repairs in our current apartment on the 23rd, picking out our actual apartment on the 24th, and finally taking Ashleigh there to show it to her on the 26th.
Amidst all of the excitement, I was visiting my Dad at his place on Gainsborough quite a bit, both to work on my newsletter and socially. He even started to get me hooked on professional wrestling again, which I hadn’t watched since the early 80’s. I noted that on February 19th we watched Monday Nitro. This had to have been one of the first times I had ever seen it. By Springtime, it would hook me for the next year or so. Watching wrestling was an infinitely more pleasurable experience than my visit on the 20th, when I met his new girlfriend Becky for the first time!
Next up: a quick trip to Minneapolis…
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